Sabado

Today was quite a day! I got to sleep in, until 7:45. There is no circle on Saturday mornings. Circle is morning devotional. I helped organize the medical clinic. It was quite a job. We had to go through all of the donations that have been sent in and organize it according to it's proper usage. We also did a top to bottom cleaning of the whole clinic, along with alphabetizing all of the kids' medical files. I ate lunch at the restaurant today, and had a nice, big helping of potatoes and rice. It was so good. After lunch, some authentic, traditional, Honduran dancers did a show for all the the children, except for the boys. They were not really in to it. It was pretty cool, and all of the girls loved it. After the dance I organized hospital cards. It didn't take too long. We ate dinner with some of the boys. It is always an experience. Tonight, I got to see two big boys fight. In the end, one had a severe bloody nose and the other one just walked away. Boys will be boys. Church is tomorrow. It starts at nine. However, in Honduras that could mean 8:45 or 9:15. It is always best to be there early. More and more girls are wearing pants this year. One of my favorite kids from last year, know as "El Presidente", because of the speeches he likes to give on the playgrounds and because his real name is that of the old Honduras president, is not talking. He came from a very bad background. All of a sudden he has stopped talking. The staff here said it has happened before, but not for this long. It is sad. You can talk to him and he will make facial expressions, but that is about it. He is still definitely famous around the orphanage though. There are more and more kids from Roaton this year. It is always neat to talk with them in English, and since our Spanish is at about the same level. Yesterday a plane crashed flying into the Tegucigalpa airport. It was all the talk here. It hasn't happened in eleven years. Thank goodness I got here ok. Taking off is much less of a problem than landing. I love you all!

I have a few pictures up! Here is the address to view them:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=38590&l=0e497&id=508170298

It´s Raining Moths

Hey everyone! The rainy season has officially arrived in Honduras. Basically, if it´s not raining, it will any second or be moist and dark all day until it actually starts raining. Tropical Storm Alma is heading this way. By the time it gets to Guaimaca, it should be a Tropical Depression. Which means even more rain and even more mud. Sorry about the typos, I am not on my laptop right now, since I am at the Internet Cafe. Today I woke up around 6:15 for big circle. But, it was raining, so circle was held in the individually houses this morning. Big circle is definitely my favorite, but at least I have five more Fridays to go. I ate some scrumptious Pop-Tarts for breakfast-thanks for packing them Mom and Dad, and a nice glass of warm water. I forgot to put ice in the freezer last night. : (. I went to get the toddlers with three other volunteers, and took them for a walk around the orphanage. The toddlers have grown up so much! Over half of them go to pre-school now. They are just as cute as ever. After our adventurous walk, I worked at the school for a little while. I trimmed all the plants and threw away all of the brown leaves. Robert (the principal) wants to make the school look as nice as possible, especially since there are so many meetings coming up. We swept all of the floors in the school. Because of all of the rain, it is hard to sweep, due to the wet floors. All of the dirt goes to the corners and is really hard to get up, especially with straw brooms. I took a short nap for about forty-five minutes, to try to catch up on sleep. I am slowly getting used to waking up at 6:15 and going to bed by 8:00. I ate a great lunch at the new, orphanage restaurant. Pork chops, potato salad, and some great, home-made tortillas. After lunch, I had to work the Internet cafe. All of the volunteers are taking shifts. It is really easy, and great because there is air-conditioning. Although the temperature is my room is about 77 degrees, which is great, with two fans, and rain. I actually got cold last night. All of the rain attracts a lot of bugs, especially these nasty, little moths. Are house was infested with them! The good thing is they only live for twenty-four hours, die if you barely touch them. I had probably a hundred in my room. When they die their wings go everywhere, so it is always fun to sweep them up. : ). I finally got a drink with caffeine today, a Pepsi light, which tasted so good. I will talk to you all soon! I love you!

I Have Arrived...

Hey Everyone! So, I am finally here. It feels like I have been planning this trip for forever. This day has been crazy. But travelling always is, especially internationally. So, after going to be around midnight, I woke up at 2:30 a.m. My mom, dad, and me were on the interstate by 3:15 and were at the Atlanta airport by 5:00. I am starting to think that airlines are trying to see how difficult they can make things. Both of my bags were under fifty pounds and met the size requirements. (Ms. Kim- LLBean bags are fine. : )!) Security was remarkably a breeze. I had no problems with any of my precautionary medicine. The flight was super smooth to Atlanta. The guy I am travelling with was able to talk the stewardess to change our tickets so that we were sitting by each other and not by some strangers. The flight was maybe half full. The flight went by pretty fast. Then, we arrived in Miami. Just when we thought things were going smoothly, we landed in Miami, Florida. Basically, this is the most confusing airport ever. After getting turned around when getting off of our plane, we walked the mile to our gate. We were sitting and eating, when guess what? They changed our gate. So we had to walk the mile back to where we came from. It was quite frustrating. You would think that concourse C and D would be next to each other......but not in Miami. Who know who designed the Miami airport, but it could definitely use some help. We met some remarkable people travelling to Honduras. We met a couple who is building houses for various families in Tegucigalpa, a women who owns a clothing store in Tegucigalpa, who is going to donate clothes and diapers to the orphanage, and a sweet, sweet lady who just loves to travel and was telling us everything we might ever want to know about Honduras. We arrived safely in Tegucigalpa. the runway here is one of the top three shortest and most dangerous in the world. Every time I land here it seems to get less scary. It is always a fun thing to watch for newbies coming to Honduras. We got off the plane, were the first in line at customs, and went through super easily. We retrieved all of our bags and were super excited none of them got lost. We met the taxi driver, who had a great big sign for us. Katja's husband was doing some shopping in Tegucigalpa, so he rode the taxi with us back to the orphanage. Before we knew it a guy had our bags and were putting them in the car, and held out his hand and asked for a "propina"-tip. We gave him seven dollars since we had five bags total. Then we realized that four other men were rearranging them in the car. They also wanted propinas. Todd finally got fed up gave them twenty dollars. Which is ridiculous. I only gave them two total dollars, and did not back down. : )! We arrived to the orphanage safely in about an hour and a half. The kids are all excited to see us. I am getting settled in to my room and unpacking. I will add pictures soon! I love and miss you all!

It's Almost Time

So, I am packing, packing, and packing. It is ridiculous how much stuff I need to bring, when I am only going to be there five weeks. I can only take two bags, that can weigh up to fifty pounds each. I did not realize how much t-shirts and jeans actually weigh.
Please do NOT call me on my cell phone and leave me voice messages while I am away. It charges me $1.99 a minute. I can receive text messages for free, but it costs me $0.35 cents to send them back. You are welcome to send me texts, but do not expect an text back. : )! You can email me at hopejudd@gmail.com. Check this blog frequently. I will try to post on here everyday to let everyone know what is going on.
I am leaving around 3 a.m. tonight/Thursday morning. Please prayer for safe travel. Thanks so much for everything everyone has done. I will be home on June 30, 2008. I love you all! God Bless!